This invention relates to an improved transferable flocked fiber sticker material.
There have been proposed and practically employed a great variety of transferable flocked fiber sticker materials and the transferable flocked fiber sticker materials of the prior art have been typically produced by the method which comprises the steps of applying a water soluble and water dispersible adhesive selected from the group consisting of carboxymethylcellulose (C.M.C.), casein, starch, rice-cake powder, acrylic acid resins and vinyl acetate resins to one surface of a base sheet which is formed of paper, cellophane or the like, releasably flocking a number of fibers to the adhesive-applied surface of the base sheet by electrostatic blowing and applying a thermoplastic synthetic resin adhesive to the exposed ends of all of the releasably flocked fibers or those of the flocked fibers in a desired design or pattern to form a thermoplastic resin adhesive layer thereon to thereby provide a transferable flocked fiber sticker material. In the transfer of the releasably flocked fibers from the thus produced transferable flocked fiber sticker material to a fabric such as a shirt, the sticker material is placed onto the fabric so as to bring the thermoplastic resin adhesive laver into contact with the fabric, heat and pressure are applied to the suface of the base sheet opposite from the release adhesive-applied surface thereof or to the surface of the fabric opposite from the surface thereof which is in contact with the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer so as to fuse the thermoplastic resin adhesive to the shirt to thereby cause the fibers to permanently adhere to the fabric, separating the transferable flocked fiber sticker material from the fabric after the curing of the thermoplastic resin adhesive so as to permanently transfer the fiber onto the fabric in the same pattern as that in which the thermoplastic resin adhesive was applied to the fibers.
The thermoplastic resin adhesive layer to be formed at the exposed ends of the releasably flocked fibers has been conventionally formed of at least one member selected from the group consisting of acrylic acid resins, latex resins, vinyl acetate resins and vinyl chloride resins, which layer serves to align the exposed ends of the fibers to which the thermoplastic resin has been applied and also hold hot melt resin adhesive which is sometime sprinkled over the thermoplastic resin layer on the latter. The thermoplastic resin adhesive is applied to the exposed ends of the releasably flocked fibers by the socalled screen printing, for example. When the hot melt resin adhesive which promotes adhesion of the fibers to a fabric such as a shirt is to be sprinkled over the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer, before the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer cures after the adhesive has been applied to the fabrics, the hot melt resin adhesive in the form of fine particles or pellets is sprinkled over the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer and the resultant assembly is forcibly dried by heating to render the hot melt resin adhesive to a partially fused state. The partially fused hot melt resin adhesive settles itself on the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer and then firmly adheres to the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer after the cooling of the assembly.
Thus, the process will not present any grave problem when the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer is formed to cover the exposed ends of all the releasably flocked fibers. On the other hand, when the thermoplastic resin adhesive is applied to the exposed ends of selected ones of the releasably flocked fibers in a design or pattern, first of all, the thermoplastic resin adhesive is applied to the exposed ends of the selected fibers by the screen printing or the like and the hot melt resin adhesive in fine particle or pellet form is sprinkled over the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer before the latter dries. However, in the sprinkling of the hot melt resin adhesive, a portion of the sprinkled hot melt resin adhesive particles frequently fall onto the exposed ends of the fibers which are not covered by the thermoplastic resin adhesive layer applied in the design or pattern and/or fall into the spaces between the fibers. If the assembly is dried by heating with the hot melt resin adhesive particles remaining on the fibers not covered by the design or pattern and in the spaces between the fibers, such portion of the hot melt resin adhesive particles soften to the degree that the hot melt resin adhesive particles cause the releasably flocked fibers to adhere to each other to form a fiber mass and/or the hot melt resin adhesive particles themselves adhered to the fibers not covered by the design to provide an unsatisfactory transferable flocked fiber sticker material. Thus, when the releasably flocked fibers are transferred from such an unsatisfactory sticker material onto a fabric, the fibers cannot be transferred onto the fabric in the desired or intended design or pattern. Therefore, such hot melt resin adhesive particles have to be removed from the fibers not covered by the design and/or the spaces between the fibers before the obtained transferable flocked fiber sticker material is subjected to the drying step. However, it is very difficult or tedious to remove the hot melt resin adhesive particles from the spaces between the fibers resulting in diminishing of the production efficiency of the transferable flocked fiber sticker material.